Controversy between Israel and the Churches of the Holy Land over the “just war”
Controversy at a distance between theEmbassy of Israel to the Holy See and the Churches of the Holy Land on the concept of “just war”. The Justice and Peace Commission of the Churches of the Holy Land expressed outrage in a statement that “political actors in Israel and abroad are using the theory of ‘just war’ to perpetuate and legitimize the ongoing war in Gaza,” noting that “Catholic moral theologians around the world have also emphasized that neither the October 7 Hamas attacks nor Israel’s devastating war in response meet the criteria of a ‘just war’ according to Catholic doctrine.”
The Israeli Ambassador to the Holy See Raphael Protection He expressed regret, in a reply note, for a document “which, with religious pretexts and linguistic tricks, does nothing other than de facto oppose Israel’s right to defend itself from its enemies who openly intend to put an end to its existence.” For the diplomat, “the document’s statement that the principle of distinction between civilians and combatants has been ignored by both sides in this war creates a false symmetry that reflects prejudice and one-sidedness” and “the way the document uses the term ‘just war’ is not compatible with international law that Israel respects and abides by”. The concept of a just war “with the weapons that are available to us becomes very difficult”, said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and the war between Israel and Palestine, said the Vatican Secretary of State questioned by journalists on the sidelines of an event at the Italian embassy to the Holy See, “is not” a just war, “one can only speak of a just war in the case of a defensive war”. The cardinal, moreover, who recently returned from Lebanon, stressed that in the country of the cedars “there is an urgent need to have a president” and “close the institutional crisis” that is dragging on in the country, the Christian parties are ready to converge on “one or more candidates” but, noted Parolin, the Hezbollah “have their own candidate, so it’s about finding a candidate who is accepted by all parties.”
